Vegan Meatballs

My friend, Janet, came for a visit to Korea. As she is now vegan, we decided to have some fun baking these wonderful meatballs with the Textured Vegetable Protein she brought with her. These are really delicious. Serve with your favourite sauce.

Vegan Meatballs
by Nancy Follwell and Janet Grice

1 cup warm water
1 heaping Tablespoon Low Sodium Chicken Salt
2 cups TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein)
1 large onion, cut into quarters
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1/2 cup cilantro
1/2 cup firm tofu
1/2 Tablespoon Barbeque Chicken Salt
1 cup cooked rice (I used Jasmine)
1 cup vegan breadcrumbs
2 Tablespoons olive oil

Place the warm water in a bowl, add the Low Sodium Chicken Salt and stir. In a food processor, add the broth and the remaining ingredients. Pulse to combine.

With a medium scoop, make meatballs and place on a greased baking tray. Bake at 375°F for 40 minutes.

Crispy Lime Chickpeas

My family loves a crispy snack and these chickpeas are so much healthier than chips. I love that they are so easy to make and high in protein. These make a great mid-afternoon snack when my kids have been playing all day long. I absolutely love that Jada Foods Chicken Salt is vegan! I was so surprised and knew that I wanted to make a recipe that would be vegan. This snack is one that I know I will be making all summer.

Crispy Lime Chickpeas
Serves 4-6
by Lindsay Blogging at Kitchen Musings Today

2 15-ounce cans of chickpeas or 3 cups cooked chickpeas
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon Jada Foods Lime Chicken Salt, extra for serving

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Drain and rinse chickpeas. Lightly dry with paper towels and place the chickpeas in a medium bowl. Add olive oil and lime salt. Stir to coat the chickpeas. Transfer the seasoned chickpeas to the prepared baking sheet.

3. Bake the chickpeas for 20 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and give the chickpeas a little shake. Return to the oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and give the chickpeas a shake. Taste a chickpea (carefully, they will be hot). If they are not crispy return to the oven. Check every 5 minutes until they are crispy. Sprinkle with additional lime chicken salt and allow to cool ten minutes, transfer to a serving dish.

These are best eaten the day they are made.

Nut-Crusted Buffalo Tofu (Vegan)

Why should wings have all the fun? Take your favorite buffalo flavors vegan with this quick and easy recipe, seen here with maple carrots and red beans and rice.

Nut-Crusted Buffalo Tofu (Vegan)
by Kate Jonuska

1 (16-ounce) package extra-firm tofu

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper

1 cup Truly Good Foods Buffalo Nuts

1/2 cup vegan egg substitute (such as Ener-G Egg Replacement or Neat Egg)
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil for frying
Hot sauce (optional)
Special equipment: food processor

Drain the tofu. Place the brick between two paper-towel-lined plates to press out excess moisture for at least 15 minutes and up to an hour.

Slice the tofu in half lengthwise, then slice each rectangle into bite-sized squares.

Season the flour with salt and pepper. Finely chop the nuts in food processor. Set up an assembly line with 1) flour, 2) egg mixture and 3) chopped nuts combined with panko breadcrumbs.

Toss each piece of tofu in the seasoned flour, then dredge it in the egg. Shake off excess egg, then drop the tofu into the nut mixture. Press into all six sides. Set aside.

Place a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add vegetable oil. Fry off the tofu in batches, making sure to brown all six sides. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate.

Serve sprinkled with hot sauce. Seen here with red beans and rice, and maple carrots.

Vegan Ding Dong Cupcakes

I love my neighbor Mary.  Seven years ago I was in my new kitchen getting unpacked, the house full of three moving men, three children, three pets and Willie. The door bell rang and I didn't even try to answer it. I knew someone else would, so I kept to my futile attempts at organizing chaos. A few minutes later I turned to my right and there appeared a bag of cookies marked Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies and a lovely note welcoming our family to the neighborhood. I thought, "how lovely, how special, how amazing that my new neighbor would go to the time and expense of making us an organic treat!" As I would come to know over the years, that's just Mary. Lovely, special, and amazing! 

I've been trying to find something that Mary would find special and I think these fit the bill. Whether you are a Ding Dong fan (like me) or not, whether you are a vegan (like Mary) or not, you will find these delicious. Make them for yourself, make them for your friends, make them for a new neighbor, but definitely make them!

Vegan Ding Dong Cupcakes

by Sandra

adapted from a recipe in the Chloe's Kitchen cookbook

Chocolate Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill Organic Unbleached White Flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup cold coffee

1/2 cup canola oil

2 Tablespoons white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

"Cream" Filling:

1 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Up to 5 Tablespoons almond milk (or soy or rice milk)

Chocolate Ganache:

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (non-dairy)

1/4 cup canned coconut milk, mixed well before meausuring

1 Tablespoon canola oil

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare the cupcake pan(s) with liners.* Yield: 12-14 cupcakes.

Mix all dry ingredients together in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just combined. Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 full. Bake for 15-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.

In a clean bowl, beat the shortening until there are no lumps. Scrape down the sides and then add the sugar and vanilla and mix at increasing speeds until combined. Reduce speed to low and add almond milk 1 Tablespoon at a time, until the mixture is light and sort of marshmallow-y. Prepare a piping bag with a long narrow tip, like a Bismarck tip, and fill it with the "cream". Insert the tip into the center of each cupcake and press in the cream. The cakes are light and airy so there is no need to scoop out any of the cake.

Place the chocolate chips and the coconut milk in a Pyrex bowl and stir. Put in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time until all chocolate is melted and smooth. Quickly whisk in the canola oil. Dip your "cream" filled cupcakes upside down into the chocolate ganache and then let set. 

These cupcakes can be made the day before serving and refrigerated or frozen if you need to make them further ahead of time. Let them come to room temperature before serving for the "cream" filling to be at it's best consistency. They will taste just as delicious as the day you made them.

*If you want to make Ding Dongs instead of cupcakes, instead of baking in a cupcake pan, use two 9-inch cake pans lined with parchment paper. Prepare as indicated, but divide

the chocolate cake batter between the two pans and bake for 16-20 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes, remove cake from pans and cool completely. Cut cake with biscuit cutters. Place one cake on top of another cake so that all of your Ding Dongs are two cake high. Yield: 8 Ding Dongs. Mine were not pretty, as you can see from this photo. But they were delicious! And they were eaten within an hour!

Sunflower Buttercup Brownies

I've recently done some vegan cooking, but I've never done any gluten-free and allergy-free baking so I was not surprised to find some ingredients in this cookbook that I'd never heard of. I am always up for a challenge and I am so glad I took this one! I now love coconut nectar, which I did not find to taste like coconut at all. It has the same consistency as honey or molasses, is mildly sweet, but has some extra depth to it. I used Pamela's Artisan Flour Blend (gluten-free) but there is a recipe in Sweet Debbie's cookbook so you can make your own if you want. I made this recipe twice. The first time I omitted the guar gum just to see what would happen. Guar gum is expensive and I was trying to save a little money. Sweet Debbie also has a recipe for sunflower seed butter and chocolate chips in her book. I bought both at the grocery store and my chocolate chips were dairy, nut, and soy free and they were mighty tasty!

So which version did we enjoy more, with guar gum or without? They were both a good treat for someone with food limitations who wants a sweet treat. We enjoyed the version with the guar gum a little more, though. My guess is if you are cooking from this book, having guar gum on hand is a necessity anyway and I recommend taking Sweet Debbie's advice on ingredients. She's done all of the research and the trial and error. Why not follow her lead?

As I read through the cookbook I found that two things stood out. Love for her son (he's the reason she started on this allergy-free, vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, soy-free, and nut-free journey) and some delicious sounding recipes. The next time I have a house guest with any of these culinary restrictions, I will most certainly cook from this book!

Sunflower Buttercup Brownies
by Sandra
Adapted from Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats

48 mini paper baking cups
2 cups all-purpose gluten free flour
2 1/2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/3 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup coconut nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/8 teaspoon stevia powder (I omitted)
1 cup sunflower seed butter
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Add the paper cups to your mini muffin baking pan(s). Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) together. Whisk the wet ingredients (oil, applesauce, nectar, vanilla) together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Add the sunflower seed butter and stir until combined and then do the same with 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Fill the paper cups 2/3 of the way full with brownie batter and top with a sprinkle of chocolate chips. Bake for 18 minutes. Cool completely. Enjoy!

P.S. I started a group on Facebook called "Leftovers!" for my neighbors. Because of all of the recipe developing my husband and I are involved in, we often cannot eat all of what we cook and I don't like to waste food! I had some leftover Sunflower Buttercup Brownies and also had some leftover dough, so I posted them in the group. This was actually the first post in the group and I wondered, would I have any takers? Well, I did! And not only did my neighbor come and pick up these treats and the dough in seconds flat, but I ended up getting texts about how great they are! The following day I got texts with photos of the newly baked treats with the dough I sent. And accolades galore! Honestly, it might have been just as much fun for me to hear about the leftovers as it was to cook in the first place! So if you are wondering if these treats are delicious - my neighbor says, absolutely!

Oatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

Besides focusing on organic, the recipes in the book Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats are also allergen-free and vegan.

So, no gluten, nuts, dairy ... all those things that are so common in baked goods.

To get around the "no dairy" issue, there's a lot of coconut oil used in these recipes, and coconut nectar is used for a sweetener.

I didn't have any coconut nectar, and after some shopping, I couldn't find it anywhere.

After some research, I found that agave nectar and honey were both acceptable substitutes from a cooking standpoint, so I used honey.

Later, I remembered that honey isn't a vegan product. But I wasn't planning on feeding any vegans, so I figured it would be fine. Use the coconut nectar or agave, if you need to keep these vegan.

The recipe also called for 3/8 teaspoon of stevia powder, which I also didn't have. Stevia is a sweetener, and since many sources said that honey was sweeter than coconut nectar, I decided to skip the stevia.

I didn't have guar gum and couldn't find it when I went shopping (although I know I've seen it at the grocery store before!), but the book suggested that xanthan gum is an acceptable alternative, so I used that.

I'm not a big fan of coconut, so I wasn't shoveling these into my mouth with wild abandon, but the chocolate flavor was definitely prominent.

For the gluten-free flour mix, I used the mix from King Arthur Flour; the book also has a recipe from making your own flour mix.

For the chips, I used Nestle's. If you're feeding vegans or folks with allergies, make sure you read the label on the chips you choose to make sure you're not inadvertently including things they can't have. The book has recipes for making your own dark chocolate chips, if you prefer to do that.

Oatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies
by Donna
adapted from Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats by Debbie Adler

1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour mix
1 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup coconut nectar (I used honey)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/8 teaspoon stevia powder (I omitted this)
1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cups gluten-free rolled oats 3/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line one or two baking sheets with parchment paper. These don't spread much, so you might be able to squeeze all the cookies on one sheet, but I found it was easier to just use a second sheet.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour mix, cocoa powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt.

Put the coconut oil and nectar (or honey or agave) in a microwave-safe measuring cup or small bowl and heat for 20-30 seconds. Add the vanilla extract and the stevia (if you're using it) and stir well. The coconut oil should melt.

Add the coconut oil mixture to the flour mixture, along with the water. Stir until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture is evenly wet.

Add the oats and the chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Portion the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets. I made about 20 cookies.

Flatten the cookies with your palm or with the bottom of a measuring cup or glass. Bake at 325 degrees until the cookies are set and the oats look dry, about 13 minutes.

If you're baking more than one sheet at a time, or if your oven doesn't bake evenly, rotate the pans in the oven partway through the baking time.

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let the cookies cool for about 10 mintues before removing them from the pan and letting them cool completely on a rack.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher.

Magic Chocolate Cake

Magic Chocolate Cake is my family's favorite snack cake of all time. I've been baking this cake for the past 35 years or so; it's never failed me. We call it 'magic' because of what it doesn't use: no eggs, no butter, no milk or cream - it's like magic that it tastes so good.

Coconut Almond Cups

37 Cooks is at it again with another challenge. This challenge is with a company that I happen to love very much, Tropical Traditions. I love their coconut flour and oil very much and use it often, but sadly not often enough. I am working on trying to incorporate more of these great products into my CCGF recipes. Tropical Traditions is America's source for coconut oil.  Their products are all organic and Non-GMO! You can read more about Tropical Traditions and all of their great products on their website.

Vegan Pizza with Coconut Milk “Mozzarella”

For this challenge I wanted to think outside the box. Or maybe I ended up thinking inside my personal pizza-obsessed box. I said to myself, “What about a coconut vegan cheese”? I played around with many different recipes and finally came up with one that I liked, flavor-wise and texture-wise post melt. I do have to say that making coconut milk from Tropical Traditions dried coconut was far superior to the canned milk. Yup, I did taste tests and experimented on the family without their knowledge. It’s the only way to get real opinions from them. So please forgive me, family. “Very buttery” was the comment that came after the final testing. The "cheese" melts kind of oozey, but there isn’t a stretchy stringiness to it, which I’m working on thanks to a NYC guy who is also pizza-obsessed and looking into pizza cheese for the vegan and lactose intolerant folks.